The world's 7th-largest economy just took a huge step toward ousting its leader

Brazil's largest political party, the Brazilian Democratic
Movement Party (PMDB), said it will leave its coalition with the
ruling Workers' Party (PT),
Reuters reports.

That means we're one step closer to seeing the impeachment of
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, and the end of her party's
decade-plus rule over the world's seventh-largest economy.

Once PMDB members leave Rousseff's camp, and any posts in her
administration, they can then vote for her impeachment.

The resignations have already started rolling in. According to
Reuters, that could get her out of office by May.

She would be replaced by her vice president, a PMDB member.

At the car wash

Rousseff's regime has been under siege since spring 2014, when an
anticorruption sting investigation called Operation Car Wash
revealed that her party had used the country's quasi-state oil
company, Petrobras, as its personal slush fund.

With Petrobras cash, the PT paid kickbacks and bribes — think
suitcases of cash and private jets. This scandal reached the
highest levels of Brazilian society in a way no scandal ever had
in the country's modern history.

Rousseff won reelection by only a hair in fall 2014.

The scandal also almost broke Petrobras. The company's
stock collapsed as it revealed that corruption had sucked over $2
billion from its balance sheet. That was last year.

The market likes the idea of Rousseff out of the picture.
The Ibovespa, Brazil's stock market, is up 18% year-to-date.
Petrobras is up 36% over the same period. Still, it's unclear who
will really run Brazil once Rousseff and the PT are out.

The PMDB is known for its lack of consensus, and the leader
of the PT's rival party, Eduardo Cunha, is also being
investigated for issues related to Operation Car Wash.